"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).

Monday, June 13, 2011

More on the Arval Brethren and Tree-Cutting

Thanks to Karl Maurer for the following email, to which I've added references to Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum numbers, etc.:

Michael, this apropos of your note on Friday, about the Arval Brethren making expiatory sacrifice for the fig they dug up. They were guardians of the grove of the Dea Dia; and it looks as if they used to make expiation for any damaged tree of hers, no matter what the cause. If you go to the splendid online “Epigraphik Datenbank” (http://oracle-vm.ku-eichstaett.de:8888/epigr/epigraphik_de) and type “arbor” in the search window, you get stuff like this (here the headings are mine; these are excerpts from 8 or 9 longer inscriptions):

See also the useful list in George N. Olcott, Thesaurus Linguae Latinae Epigraphicae: A Dictionary of the Latin Inscriptions, Vol. I (Rome: Loescher, 1904), pp. 430-431 (s.v. arbor).

There doesn't appear to be an English translation of the entire Acts of the Arval Brethren, but I did find some translations of excerpts illustrating expiatory sacrifices for tree-cutting. In the following translations, I've added underlining and omitted footnotes.

Seven days before the Ides of November <7 November>, the Arval Brothers assembled in the grove of Dea Dia on the Campanian Road <via Campana>, at the fifth milestone, on the instructions of Caius Porcius Priscus, the master. And there they made sacrifice because in a violent storm some trees in the sacred grove of Dea Dia were struck by lightning and burnt; and in expiation for uprooting those trees, striking them with iron and consuming them in fire, for grinding down their remains and then for replacing them with others, and for initiating the work and rebuilding altars for the occasion, sacred to Dea Dia  in expiation for these things a purificatory sacrifice was carried out with the offering of a full-grown pig, ram and bull <suovetaurilia>. Then in front of the temple cows, their horns bound with gold, were sacrificed to Dea Dia  total 2; then at the altars built for the occasion sacrifices were made to the gods as listed below: to Janus Pater, rams  2; to Jupiter, wethers  2; to Mars Pater Ultor, rams  total 2; to deity, male or female, wethers  2; to the spirit of Dea Dia, sheep  total 2; to the virgin deities, sheep  total 2; to the attendant deities, wethers  total 2; to Fons <the god of springs>, wethers  total 2; to Flora, sheep  total 2; to Summanus Pater, black wethers  2; to Vesta Mater, sheep  2; to vesta of the gods and goddesses, sheep  2; likewise to Adolenda and Coiquenda, sheep  2; and before the shrine of the Caesars, to the spirit of our lord, the emperor Severus Alexander, a bull with gilded horns; likewise to the divi, totalling 20, wethers  20.

In the consulship of Gaius Bellicus Natalis Tebianus and Gaius Decenius Proculus, May 19, in the grove of Dea Dia, during the mastership of Gaius Nonius Bassus Salvus Liberalis, the Arval Brethren made a sacrifice to Dea Dia. Gaius Salvus Liberalis, acting master in place of Gaius Julius Silanus, before the grove sacrificed on the altar two expiatory sows for the pruning and the work done in the grove; then he sacrificed a white honorary cow to Dea Dia. Gaius Salvius Liberalis Nonnius Bassus, Lucius Maecius Postumus, Aulus Julius Quadratus, Publius Sallustius Blaesus, Quintus Tillius Sassius sat down in the tetrastyle and dined from the sacrifice, and assuming their purple-bordered robes and wreaths with ears of grain and fillets, they ascended the grove of Dea Dia to the retreat, and through Salvius Liberalis Nonius Bassus, acting master, and Quintus Tillius Sassius, acting flamen, they sacrificed a fat lamb to Dea Dia, and when they had completed the sacrifice they all offered incense and wine. then, after the wreaths were brought in and the images were anointed, they made Quintus Tillius Sassius annual master from the coming Saturnalis to the next, likewise Tiberius Julius Celsus Marius Candidus flamen; then they descended to the tetrastyle and there, reclining on couches, they dined in honor of[?] the master Gaius Julius Silanus. After the banquet, veiled and wearing sandals and a wreath plaited with roses, he ascended to the retreat above the starting point and sent a signal to the charioteers and acrobats, who were supervised by Lucius Maecius Postumus; he honored the victors with palms and silver wreaths. On the same day at Rome at the home of Gaius Julius Silanus the same persons dined as had dined in the grove.

Likewise on the fourth day before the Kalends of June (May 29), in the grove of the Dea Dia, Alfenius Avitianus, the vice-magister, sacrificed at the altar two young sows, an offering of expiation for the cutting of the grove and the work thus done, and then he sacrificed a heifer in honour of the Dea Dia, and going to the Tetrastylum he sat in his chair. Then returning to the altar, he offered the exta of the young sows.